There are basically two types of prophecies in the Bible. The first group are the prophecies to the Body of Christ or to the world generally, and also to the individual nations of the world. The second group of prophecies are the ones that are personal, and which are often directed to a particular individual.
Every child of God should be able to follow prophetic words generally, because they are always in line with the written word of God, which we are meditating on day and night.
Personal prophecies are what often generates concerns among Christians, because if they are not registered in the heart of the believer, as the will of God for his life, he should be immediately rejecting them with spoken words. But concerning the first group of prophecies, the Holy Scriptures are there to help us in judging them.
A lot of Christians are often being misled through personal prophecies about the will of God for their lives. Any word of prophecy that creates doubt or concern in the heart of a believer, is straight from the pit of hell. It should never be entertained at all.
Such prophecies are often being engineered by the enemy to derail the plan and purpose of the Lord God, for the life of that believer in Christ Jesus. Satan has his own prophets everywhere around us. Guide your heart against them!
They come in several forms. And they are often presenting themselves as the prophets of God, to those who do not have a firm foundation of the written word of God in their lives. They are extremely dangerous and harmful to your spirit, soul and body. Watch out for them and keep away from them.
No child of God should be having any business seeking after prophecies. If the Lord God has a prophetic word for you, He knows how to get it across to you.
The Holy Scriptures gives the surest word of prophecies to every believer in Christ Jesus. Whatever the Bible promises us shall surely come to pass, as long as it is being fully embraced with the heart. God’s word will do exactly what it says about you, if you will believe in it.
His word is the finality of all things in your life:
“Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.”
Psalms 119:89 NKJV
Jesus also said:
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.”
Matthew 24:35 NKJV
God’s written word is the surest word of prophecy that will never fail. Believe in it with your heart, and proclaim it with your mouth, then watch the Lord bring it to come to pass, as you are standing on His promises to you by faith (2 Corinthians 4:13).
Every time you are proclaiming God’s written word (His promises to you), you are prophesying to yourself. You are the best prophet of your own life. Don’t ever cease to proclaim your healing, deliverance and prosperity until you see it come to pass in your life.
And after it has come to pass, you will still have to keep on declaring it, so as to keep it, and prevent the enemy from stealing God’s promises away from your heart and your mouth.
There are many who had been healed as an example, but who have stopped declaring their healing based on the word of God. The moment that happens to them, they become wary of God’s promise to heal them.
The result is that they easily forget about those promises. And thereafter they have fallen sick again of the very same sickness, that they had been healed of by the word of God.
God’s word identifies His Prophets
There are however Prophets who have been taught and disciplined from the presence of the Lord God. It is very important to know them and differentiate them from the false prophets of the evil one.
When the Lord God instructs His Prophets, He always does so in clarity and not with dark sayings or puzzles. He speaks directly to them in the same manner, by which you speak with your friends. They have been trained and brought up by Him to understand His purpose and plan in every situation.
His word to them is never confusing or contradictory. God’s word is never confusing or contradictory to any true Christian. It is those who are dull of hearing and the ability to incline to the prophetic words, who are often self-contradictory and confusing.
God’s Prophets are straight forward whenever they are declaring the word of the Lord, to those they have been sent by the Lord to speak His word to.
They are sharp shooters with the spoken word of God. God’s Prophets will always speak straight to the root of every situation in your life.
The Prophet Isaiah said about himself:
“For the Lord God will help Me; Therefore, I will not be disgraced; Therefore, I have set My face like a flint, And I know that I will not be ashamed.”
Isaiah 50:7 NKJV
By setting his face like a flint, he was not prepared to compromise what the Lord God had ordered him to declare. The Prophet who speaks directly from God has his face set as a flint. He may seem hard and serious, but that is because he has to take God’s word seriously as God sees it.
John the Baptizer said the same thing in this manner:
“And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Matthew 3:10 NKJV
God’s spoken word is the ax that is laid to the root of every problem through His Prophets. His word spoken through the mouth of His Prophets, cuts through every human situation to bring His plan and purpose into reality.
God’s spoken word through the mouth of His Prophet, is just as a scalpel to the surgeon on the operating table. It goes to the heart of every problem to bring God’s solution to it. God’s word is the tool that His Prophets always works with.
It brings healing to the sick, deliverance to the captive. It supplies the needs of the poor. His word brings restoration of everything that has been lost or stolen by the devil. His spoken word brings God’s prosperity into your life, as you are faithfully being obedient and committed to it.
That’s why God’s Prophets don’t mingle their words with the opinions of men, so as to please the world or their listeners. A real Prophet lives to please God only, and not the people.
And that’s basically why they are often facing persecution, because they can be rough and tough with their use of God’s word. Their main goal is to please God. But if you obey the word of the Prophet, you will definitely eat of the good of the land (Isaiah 1:19).
God’s Prophets sees the form of God through His word and reveals it to those for whom it is meant.
Jesus is the Greatest Prophet of all.
Jesus Christ is the greatest of all the Prophets. He often narrated several of His parables in the scriptures with dark sayings, which often held His disciples speechless.
They were speechless because they understood His words to be the truth, but too hard for the unlearned to comprehend.
Just as any real Prophet of God today, Jesus had often used strong words to relay spiritual truth to us in the scriptures. That’s why the religious leaders were persecuting Him. They knew that His words were often purposefully targeted at them.
But He had to do that, so as to get them into understanding, how vitally important every spiritual truth is.
This is why if you are not a disciple of Jesus Christ, you will find it difficult to understand some of God’s Prophets today.
Peter once mentioned about the Pauline writings and the manner in which spiritual truth had been portrayed by the Prophet Paul with these words, when he wrote that:
“(Paul) as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures. You, therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen”.
2 Peter 3:16-18 NKJV
The Prophet Paul sometimes wrote in puzzles and with dark sayings, which some undisciplined and unstable Christians have twisted because of their lack of sound doctrines, so as to project their own ungodly and selfish ambitions. And by misjudging the prophetic words of Paul they are destroying themselves.
You have to be biblical discipled or disciplined to comprehend biblical prophecies. Otherwise, you will find yourself being lost in taking hold of the eternal hope of your Christian faith.
We can easily see from the scriptures that the disciples of Jesus had learnt by staying close to Him, that as long as they were keeping themselves in steps with Him, while following in His teachings and instructions, they would always come out scripturally brighter and smarter.
Of all the twelve Apostles that Jesus had appointed none of them had any theological background. Paul was the only New Testament Apostle who had been theological taught by the religious authorities of the time.
And he was not even with the original twelve Apostles, while they were being discipled by Jesus. The Holy Spirit taught them all how to become sound theologically. When you are fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit, He will establish you in the spiritual truth that will make you sound theologically and doctrinally (1 John 2:27).
Jesus taught with dark sayings even though He knew that the crowd, that was listening to Him could not understand what He was saying. He obviously was not speaking directly to them, but to the religious leaders.
And in other instances, He would speak with puzzles to His disciples as well. In most instances whenever He was speaking to the religious leaders, they knew that He was speaking to them.
Jesus often used puzzles and dark sayings to teach and discipline His disciples. He did this deliberately, so as to train them to hear more from above.
He did not want them to feel comfortable with the corruption of the world around them. They were not of this world, even though they were in the world. Jesus trained His disciples to hear and always take heed to the voice from above, and not the voice of this world.
He discipled them not to be paying attention to what was socially acceptable, because He knew that being socially acceptable to the world would make them the enemy of God. And that would have disqualified them from being His Prophets to their generation (1 John 2:15-17).
He once told them emphatically after narrating the parable of the Sower, while the disciples were still being concerned that, the crowd would not understand what He had said; that:
“ .. Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore, I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”
Matthew 13:11-13 NKJV
Jesus wasted none of His time to be teaching and instructing those who were not open to receive His teachings. He was not prepared to play their silly worldly games with them, concerning their cultures and traditions as they were continually looking for ways to criticize Him. He knew exactly what they were doing as they followed Him.
He had come to do the will of His Father in Heaven. Nothing that was going on in the culture and tradition of His world, could take His focus away from the will of His Heavenly Father.
That was why He paid more attention to teaching and disciplining His own disciples, because He knew that they would have to carry on His work after His ascension.
It was the responsibility of His disciples to catch up with His teachings, about the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. They were responsible for revealing these mysteries to His followers, who were to come after His ascension.
By doing this Jesus prepared each one of the twelve Apostles for the prophetic ministry. The prophetic ministry is meant for those who had been fully trained and discipled specifically by the Lord.
It’s different from the other ministry callings of the fivefold ministries. However, each of the other callings of the fivefold ministries may occasionally function prophetically. But to be able to stand in the office of a Prophet takes a lot of preparation from the presence of the Lord God.
That’s why the Prophets of the Lord God are often being persecuted, because such training doesn’t come from men. It comes from the presence of the Lord God Himself. He prepares each Prophet for their specific assignments to the people, that He wants them to go to with His word.
And oftentimes because they are more focused on relaying the message of the Lord to the people, instead of compromising it to fit into the culture and traditions of the people, God’s Prophets are often being rejected and persecuted.
They however do have to speak the mind of God, just plainly and simply as the Lord God has directed them to speak.
It’s not up to them to be mincing words, in an attempt to downplay the seriousness and severity of the word of the Lord God. God’s word through His Prophets must be delivered with the same seriousness and sense of urgency that it has been received by them.
Those who have received the word of the Lord through His Prophets do understand what it means. The Lord God always prepares them to receive His word through His Prophet, as the affirmation of what He has already revealed to them in puzzles or dark sayings of visions.
So, whenever the prophetic word comes, it is no longer a dark saying to them. The prophetic word brings the light of God into the puzzles and dark saying of their lives. It explains the puzzles and the meaning of the dark sayings of God to them.
Therefore, they do know exactly what to do about what the Prophet has declared to them. It’s therefore up to them to receive it by faith and run with it.
The Prophet knows God’s form and His pathway.
When God commanded the Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his only son to Him, Abraham alone knew the exact location on top of Mount Moriah for the sacrifice, and the pathway to it (Genesis 22:2).
He never told anyone about the pathway that the Lord God had mapped out for him, to get his son back to life. He knew that he had to pass God’s test of his faith. So he kept it to himself.
Even the mother of his son (Sarah) never knew what he was going to do on the mountain. God’s Prophets are the ones who are trusted by Him to keep His mysteries to themselves.
When the Prophet Moses ascended the mountain to meet with God, he alone knew the pathway to the exact location on Mount Sinai, where he was supposed to meet with Him (Exodus 19:20).
And during his time of intimacy with God on the mountain, a special relationship was established between them.
The Prophet Moses saw the form of God in a manner that manifested God’s glory all over his face. The people saw the glory of the Lord on his face, and they could not stand before him. They knew that God had met with a man among them (Exodus 34:28-35).
We can say the same thing about Elijah as he ascended the mountain of Horeb to meet with the Lord God, while fleeing from the persecution by Jezebel. Elijah knew the exact place he was supposed to stand, for the Lord God to reveal Himself to him (1 Kings 19:8).
Elijah had prepared himself to meet with the Lord God, as he journeyed to the place that the angel had directed him to go. He ate only the food given to him by the angel and journeyed to the place in the strength of the Lord.
Every one of God’s Prophets in the scriptures has their individual training and discipline directly from the Lord, for the specific assignment that He had given them. Each one of them was trained differently to walk in the calling that the Lord had given to them.
For each one of God’s Prophets the very place of their meeting with the Lord, became the place of their transformation in fulfilling their callings. It became their contact point with the Lord God Almighty.
It became the place where the Prophets were joined together with God, as His chosen instruments in fulfilling His purpose to His people.
Whenever Jesus went up to the mountain top so as to fellowship with the Father, He alone knew the exact time, the place and how to get there. He never needed His disciples to go to the mountain top with Him. Those were His moments of intimacy with the Father in Heaven.
He summarized the result of those encounters with the Father on the mountain top with these words:
“I and My Father are one.”
John 10:30 NKJV
The greatest of all the Prophets, as the Son of Man became one with the Father. God became one with the Man on the earth.
Jesus was discipled by the Father Himself through the fellowship, which they had enjoyed together on the mountain top. He regularly spent all nights in prayer and fellowship with the Father (Matthew 14:23).
He never did it once. It was what He did for as long as He was on the earth. The only moments when He took the closest disciples with Him, was during His transfiguration and at the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 9:28 and Matthew 26:36-37).
And He took them along with Him because He wanted to teach and discipline them, about how to wait on the Lord God in prayer.
Those moments transformed the spiritual lives of each of these three Apostles (Peter, James and John); who later became the leaders of the early Church. Each one of them stood in the office of the Prophet of God to the Church. Their letters are there for us today, testifying about their individual ministries.
A true Prophet knows the form of God and the pathway to Him. He is not moved by anything, as he follows the pathway that the Lord God has mapped out ahead of him. He walks steadfastly and firmly along that path, because with every step of faith that he takes in following that path, he sees the form of God with him in it.
By honoring the word of God’s Prophet, we are honoring God. We are responding to His love when we are honoring His Prophets. And as we respond to His love through His Prophets, we are empowered to see our own pathway into our own prosperity.
As Jehoshaphat once said to the people of Judah:
.. “Hear me, O Judah and you inhabitants of Jerusalem: Believe in the Lord your God, and you shall be established; believe His prophets, and you shall prosper.”
II Chronicles 20:20 NKJV
By receiving and obeying the words of God’s Prophets, the light of Christ in your heart brightens the pathway to your prosperity. But those who are rebellious will suffer a heartache and be in despair.
It is costly to reject the Prophet of God. Those who are doing this often have found themselves being lost in a spiritual vacuum. They are heartbroken and suffering without any foresight about their future.
When God speaks to His Prophets, He speaks face to face with them, without anything being hidden from them. And when He judges His Prophets, He does so in a way that is different from the way that He judges others in the fivefold ministries.
The Lord God told Aaron and Miriam during their rebellion against Moses in the wilderness, when they had challenged him for marrying an Ethiopian woman:
“ .. Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant Moses?”
Numbers 12:6-8 NKJV
The Lord God made a clear distinction between His priests and His Prophets here. In the Old Testament God spoke to His priests through the Urim and Thummim. But with His Prophets He spoke in dreams and visions of the night.
However, under the new dispensation of the Holy Ghost, He speaks directly as He spoke with Moses on the mountain. He speaks face to face with them, in accordance with the way that they have been taught and disciplined by Him.
We can see the special relationship that existed between Moses and the Lord God here. That relationship between them was reemphasized by Jesus on the mountain of transfiguration, for us to comprehend under the new dispensation of the Holy Ghost.
God doesn’t use dark sayings or puzzles to communicate with His Prophets. He speaks face to face with them, as if speaking to His friends. When Aaron and Miriam confronted Moses about his marriage to an Ethiopian woman, their behavior irked God.
The Lord God came out openly in support of His friend (Moses). That’s what happens in any covenant relationship. Covenant partners will always support one another.
The Lord God was in a Covenant relationship with Moses. It’s different from His relationship with Aaron and Miriam, which was based on His Covenant with their forefathers.
Those who are standing up against the Prophets of God are inviting His wrath on themselves. And they will surely get it. Those who speak anyhow about God’s Prophets don’t prosper in their ways either.
Moses was found faithful in all of his dealings with the Lord God. That’s how God treats the faithfulness of every believer in Christ Jesus to the Covenant by His blood. He cherishes and honors our faithfulness to His written word.
The scripture summarized the prophetic ministry of Moses to Israel in this manner:
” There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.”
Deuteronomy 34:10 NLT
The Prophet is a Preacher and an Intercessor.
A Prophet is often identified as a Preacher of God’s word. However, he is not only a Preacher, but he is a teacher of God’s word before he becomes a Preacher. As he is being found faithful with each one of these positions, he finds himself being elevated by the Lord God.
Apart from that he is also an intercessor. Due to his special relationship with the Lord God, he has the ability to intercede on behalf of others in God’s presence. Especially on behalf of those who cannot pray for themselves.
Moses had to tap into the benefit of his special relationship with the Lord God, to save Miriam from the wrath of the Lord. He had interceded on her behalf when she became covered with leprosy, as a result of her rash criticism of His Prophet (Moses).
The Lord God had to respond to the appeal by Moses, because of the special relationship that He had with him:
“So, Moses cried out to the Lord, saying, “Please heal her, O God, I pray!” Then the Lord said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not be shamed seven days? Let her be shut out of the camp seven days, and afterward she may be received again.”
Numbers 12:13-14 NKJV
Aaron was also protected from the judgement of the Lord God by Moses, when as the appointed priest of God’s people, he had allowed them to make a golden calf in the wilderness. Moses said later on before his death about the incident:
“And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him; so, I prayed for Aaron also at the same time.”
Deuteronomy 9:20 NKJV
God’s Prophets carry the presence of the Lord God with them. When you are honoring them, you are honoring God and His word.
As Jesus said:
“He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward.”
Matthew 10:41 NKJV
In other words when you’re honoring the Prophet of God, you will receive the same reward that belongs to the Prophet also.
By honoring the Prophet of God, you are sharing in the prophetic anointing over his life. You are tapping into that anointing, and you will receive the same reward as that Prophet. You will prosper just as the Prophet is prospering.
And since you are sharing in his anointing, you will surely share in his persecution also. If he is being persecuted, you will partake of it with him. You will partake of his suffering and of his prosperity with him, because you are following the Prophet as he is following God’s word.
That’s what Jesus meant when He said, if you honor the Prophet, you will get a Prophet’s reward. You will share in his suffering and glory also with him.
It’s a foolish thing not to believe in the Prophets of God. There are many Prophets of the Lord God today in the Body of Christ. If you’re allowing God’s word to dwell in your heart, you will recognize them when you hear them speak.
By aligning yourself with them, you are aligning yourself with your prosperity. You therefore will be able to escape the damnation of the unbelievers.
But don’t be slow to act when you see or hear them. You may never have that opportunity again. If the Lord brings you the opportunity to align yourself with him, seize it and don’t let it go.
After Jesus rose from the dead, the early believers were slow to believe that He was risen. And it was because of this that Jesus could not immediately reveal Himself to them. He had to help them to find their pathway back, so that they could follow in the words of the Old Testament Prophets about Him.
He told them:
“Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”
Luke 24:25-27 NKJV
Jesus had to go back to the prophetic words concerning Himself, so that they could embrace His resurrection. That’s why it’s important to be following in the pathway of the Prophets through the scriptures. If you’re doing this, you will never be lost or confused about the holy scriptures.
Moses had once prophesied about Jesus in the wilderness to the Israelites. He was pointing out the greatest Prophet to them when he said:
“The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear,”
Deuteronomy 18:15 NKJV
As Moses followed the pathway that the Lord God had given him, his spiritual eyes were opened to see Jesus being manifested to Israel.
Unfortunately, up to this day it is not all the Israelites who are seeing Jesus as the greatest of all Prophets. Many are still slow at heart to embrace the One Who Moses had pointed out to them.
That pathway in recognizing the Prophets will lead us always into the perfect will of the Father, for every situation that we are facing on the earth today.
God’s word is eternally settled in Heaven. The only people who can establish it on the earth are His people. But if His people are not paying attention to the prophetic words in the scriptures, they will become just like the lost people of the world.
Jesus took time out to point the hard-hearted believers about his resurrection to the scriptures, so that the prophetic words can brighten their hearts to believe in His resurrection:
“Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.”
Luke 24:44-45 NKJV
In the same manner those who are paying attention to the words of the Prophets, can save themselves from a lot of troubles in the world today.
That’s why it’s important to stay focused on the words of the Prophets. It will not only deliver you; but it will protect and prosper you in a world that is turning upside down.
